an decline: spare tire carrier

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My spare tire takes up too much valuable interior cargo space so I sourced a made-to-order fabricator and purchased a spare tire carrier for my stock Jeep rear bumper. This allows me to free up the space inside, and carry the spare on the back of the Jeep.

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In order to install the rear mounted tire carrier, I had to remove my trailer hitch and bumper whose mounting bolts are big, strong, and rusty; securing the accessories to the Jeep's frame rail. They have a tendency to break so in the days prior to installation I soaked them with penetrating solvent.

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One bolt broke off inside the frame on each side, rusted solid to the backing plates, forcing me to resort to my angle grinder with a cut-off wheel. I used some cardboard to safeguard the fuel tank from sparks.

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Because I broke the bolt off inside the frame rail, I will not be re-installing the hitch at this time. However, the bumper will be cleaned up and re-installed along with the new subframe and swingarm assemblies I have freshly painted red and black.

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I washed and prepped the stock Jeep cross-member for paint behind the bumper to ensure a clean mounting surface for the new tire carrier sub-frame assembly.

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Although my bumper is bent quite a bit on the passenger side from a close encounter with a boulder, it won't affect the installation of the tire carrier, so I applied a quick coat of flat black while I had the chance.

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The backing plates couldn't be removed from the slots in the frame because of the bolts I cut off. They were too tall to fit through the access slot, so I had to get creative. This kind of unexpected troubleshooting takes up a good 50 percent of the time spent on many of my projects.

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The bolts broke off in the same center hole on each in-frame backing plate.

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The tire carrier mounts with frame rail tie ins in place of the stock backing plates.

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The stock cross-member which I painted black is sandwiched by the red heavy duty steel subframe and subframe plate, both reinforcing the frame and providing plenty of rigidity to hold the weight of the tire.

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I am impressed with the quality and craftsmanship of the tire carrier, whose mounting hardware alone is a positive indicator for the precision integration of the unit with the stock Jeep cross-member, utilizing 18 bolts mounted through existing holes.

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In order to retain the stock bumper, access slots must be cut in it's face to allow the tire carrier's spindle and latch mechanism to pass through and connect to the swingarm. I measured twice and cut once.

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I applied the included templates to the bumper to locate holes for drilling. This will enable me to sandwich the stock bumper skin between the sub-frame and the spindle and latch plates.